Whenever I mention politics in one of my blog posts, I receive angry messages from people complaining that it is inappropriate to do so. However, it has been clear for, frankly, centuries that fringe history and conspiracy theories have a political dimension. Over the last few days it’s become obvious that this year is no different, and in many ways more extreme than we have seen in decades, and not just because the former Curse of Oak Island guest who current runs Xplrr Media spent most of the past weekend trying to goad Republican politicians into retweeting a badly designed anti-Hillary Clinton meme.

This week The Hillreported that Donald Trump’s campaign CEO, Steven Bannon, the head of the rightwing Breitbart News, is a conspiracy theorist who believes that American elites, in both the Democratic and Republican parties, are conspiring to bring about a single world government—the same claim that ancient astronaut theorists, UFO conspiracy theorists, and anti-Masonic activists have long made. An unnamed source told The Hill that “He thinks Paul Ryan is part of a conspiracy with George Soros and Paul Singer, in which elitists want to bring one world government.”

The source likened Bannon’s claims to those of Alex Jones, the Info Wars conspiracy theorist who is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump. Trump appeared on Jones’s show earlier this year and praised the conspiracy theorist, who routinely advocates claims involving demons, space aliens, and giants. This week Jones build upon Donald Trump’s reference to Hillary Clinton as “the devil” in the second debate to reinforce a meme that has been circulating in rightwing extremist circles for several months accusing both Pres. Obama and Clinton of being literal demons from hell. Citing the fact that a fly landed on Clinton’s face during the debate, Jones likened this to Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies:

I’m never a lesser of two evils person, but with Hillary, there’s not even the same universe. She is an abject, psychopathic, demon from Hell that as soon as she gets into power is going to try to destroy the planet. I’m sure of that, and people around her say she’s so dark now, and so evil, and so possessed that they are having nightmares, they’re freaking out. […] Imagine how bad she smells, man? I’m told her and Obama, just stink, stink, stink, stink. You can’t wash that evil off, man. Told there’s a rotten smell around Hillary. I’m not kidding, people say, they say -- folks, I’ve been told this by high up folks. They say listen, Obama and Hillary both smell like sulfur. I never said this because the media will go crazy with it, but I’ve talked to people that are in protective details, they’re scared of her. And they say listen, she’s a frickin’ demon and she stinks and so does Obama. I go, like what? Sulfur. They smell like Hell.

Regular readers will recall that Jones frequently hosts such fringe history stalwarts as Steve Quayle, the evangelical extremist who believes that the Nephilim are on the rampage and, by implication, that gay people should be exterminated in a divinely sanctioned genocide.

Notice that Jones was not speaking metaphorically. And who else supports this claim? That’s right: Gigantologist Steve Quayle, who brought up the idea that flies signify Democrats’ demonic affiliation on Alex Jones’s show back in August. Quayle explicitly tied this to the Nephilim and their plans to destroy the world. Quayle did not create this claim, which originated on rightwing evangelical message boards several years go. However, given the recent reporting that the Trump campaign has unusually close ties to Alex Jones—Trump advisor Roger Stone is a close Jones friend and a frequent Jones guest—and that Trump repeats conspiracy theories that appear on Jones’s broadcast, it raises the question of whether Trump’s allegation that Clinton is the “devil” was inspired by Jones and Quayle.

This is not just an idle question. Nephilim theorist L. A. Marzulli endorsed Donald Trump for president a few weeks ago specifically because he reflected Marzulli’s opposition to Muslims and gays. There is a close and disturbing connection between rightwing politics and Nephilim theories. This connection was on full display this week when an actual U.S. congressman embraced the Nephilim theory of history in order to justify anti-gay policies.

Now, granted, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) is well-known as a lunatic who says ridiculous things, usually about gay people. But Gohmert’s latest pronouncement revealed a deeper level of disgusting ideology that originates in the Nephilim worldview. On Monday Gohmert served as host of the Point of View radio show in which he interviewed an anti-gay activist about a new anti-gay film called Light Wins in which Gohmert appears with other Republicans like Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul. The filmmaker, Janet Porter, asserts in the film that gay marriage was legal in the “Days of Noah”—a reference to the Nephilim theology that alleges that pre-Flood conditions of Nephilim-homosexual dominance will recur prior to the Second Coming.

I have previously explained the illogical scriptural inferences that undergird this theory. Basically, it derives from an old but often discredited interpretation of the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:37 (= Luke 17:26), “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” Taken out of context, evangelical Nephilim theorists argue that this means that the Nephilim will run rampant as they did in Genesis 6:4. On the authority of Jude 6-7, which equates the Fallen Angels with the fornicators of Sodom, these theorists argue that the Nephilim must have been sodomites, so therefore homosexuality heralds the Apocalypse. By standard interpretation, Jesus is instead saying, as he does in the very next verses, in Matthew 24:38-39, that humanity will be oblivious to the coming of the Son of Man, as they were oblivious to the coming of the Flood. This is reinforced by the parallel passage at Luke 17:28-29, where the oblivious of the people of Sodom to the judgment against them is added. A plain reading does not imply that the Nephilim will return, but Nephilim theorists take Luke to parallel with Jude and therefore confirm that gayness is the source of God’s wrath.

Gohmert told Porter that he endorses this view. “We know homosexuality was widespread in Greece and Rome and Babylon and especially in Sodom and Gomorrah but that’s a little scary that it wasn’t legal except before the flood,” Gohmert said.

It goes without saying that (a) the Flood didn’t happen, (b) no law codes from before the imaginary Flood exist, and (c) gay marriage has been legal in other times and places in historical times.

The argument that gays are bringing about the “Days of Noah” has a famous and relatively mainstream advocate, James Dobson, the evangelical leader who also is one of the leading apologists for none other than Donald Trump among evangelicals.

Now, before I conclude, I want to stop here to mention that none of these men is smart enough or aware enough to know why they believe what they do. The innovation making homosexuality the crime of the Nephilim and the source of all iniquity is actually quite ancient. Christians took a hard line against gays in order to show their opposition to the Greco-Roman culture they viewed as too tolerant of sin, and we find that Christian leaders were quick to outlaw it. For example, Charlemagne’s Capitularies and Justinian’s Code outlawed homosexuality. But the Church did far more. In 829 the Council of Paris officially endorsed the claim that the Nephilim (in their Western guise, as the union of the sons of Seth and daughters of Cain) were gay. They did so in Canon 34:

Among all the other sins which the human race fatally committed at the beginning of creation, it is believed that, provoked to wrath especially by this sin (as certain teachers have maintained), [God] said: “I repent making man on the earth” [Gen. 6:6]. Therefore on this account, he utterly destroyed by a cataclysm [the Flood] the whole human race except for eight souls. Furthermore, because of this crime ﬁve cities were swallowed up by raging ﬁre from heaven and by the gaping mouth of hell, and forty or more thousand of the race of Benjamin were struck down by the sword’s edge in fraternal war [Judges 20]. Thus these manifest proofs show beyond a doubt how detestable and execrable this vice is to divine majesty. (trans. Louis Compton)

This was an innovation beyond even Justinian’s Code, which had merely assigned gays the role of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah with their lust. According to Louis Compton, the “teachers” listed in the Canon were in actuality Pseudo-Methodius, or more accurately, his Latin translator in (I believe) the third (?) Latin recension, who introduced the idea into the translated Syriac text around 700 CE. In that text, the translator apparently causes Pseudo-Methodius to assign God’s wrath to the “unmentionable types of fornication” by introducing gay sex amongst Methodius’ catalog of sexual sins, which were in the original merely “male on female, and female on male”:

In the one thousand five hundredth year of the second millennium, all of the people in the camp of Cain were inflamed with a desire for unspeakable fornications, much more so than the preceding generation, mounting one another like animals, men on the male sex and women on the female, perverting nature and likewise engaging in shameful acts and incest, and they so used all those who were from the tribe of Cain. (my trans.)

Methodius goes on to explain that the Devil made Seth’s descendants (the Sons of God) participate in the horrific sins, begetting the giants because they lusted after the daughters of Cain.

This passage influenced Peter Comestor, who refers to men catching fire before the Flood if they had had sex with one another, and later medieval poetry and histories, where homosexuality is increasingly identified as the cause of the Flood, not just the sin of Cain’s corrupt brood.

I forget which late-night comic it was, but the best explanation I've heard for the fly on Clinton was because she was standing next to a giant pile of bulls**t.

Also, on the whole Days of Noah thing, doesn't God promise never to destroy the world again? So theologically what can God do about the Days of Noah returning? Sulk in His room?

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Uncle Ron

10/12/2016 07:22:40 pm

God promises never to destroy the world with a FLOOD. He conveniently leaves open the option to destroy it with fire.

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Tom

10/12/2016 12:33:33 pm

The association of the fringers to right wing politicos seems to be the way of the world.
There were connections between right wing factions and the early "Flying Saucer Contactees" Betherum and Hunt -Williamson.
Von Daniken also dabbled in the same waters and I would be surprised if other modern Ancient Alien or Atlantean experts had not dipped in a toe or two.
As you have pointed out, Alex Jones attracts political cranks and religious fanatics and gives them a platform to vent their intolerance,
however, they are believed only by the like minded though unfortunately get more publicity than they are worth.
From across the pond, America still seems very sane and the chances of an American Hitler or Lucrezia Borgia arising from the next Presidential Election still seem very, very remote.

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Ken

10/12/2016 03:56:30 pm

The connection between politics and the fringe is that neither pursuit requires precise knowledge, logical skills, or critical thinking. You can do just fine in either area by just making stuff up. Both can be lucrative with minimal effort or responsibility and you are surrounded by gullible people who revere you just because of your notoriety.

And so it surprises no one that both pursuits are saturated with people who couldn't get a 'real' job if their life depended on it.

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JoJo

10/12/2016 01:23:52 pm

Do you think that somehow intelligence services don't use these themes to distort reality for people? We see pictures of Hillary Clinton w/ UFO books. Now Podesta is commenting on UFO's. We have the grand-daughters of two Presidents (Eisenhower and Van Buren) being involved in telling us about UFO's and esoteric info. Ms. Van Buren even lived in the Rennes le Chaerau area and wrote books about ufo's and the NWO long ago. Then let's examine the involvement of FDR in Oak Island. These concepts have been used to manipulate and effect people since Ancient times and it is still working today. Regardless of the truth of these subjects it is clear they have always been used to influence the body politic. To me this is no surprise at all and when you realize this it opens up a lot of doors to what was really going on. In the past many times a literary figure or artists were blatantly used to influence people. Look at the videos online of how Terrance McKenna worked for the Easlin Institute etc.

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Kal

10/12/2016 02:21:52 pm

I do not consider the Nephilim to be a modern credible threat to anything. They were a personification of an advanced human group more tech savvy than the old Genesis Hebrew Israelites. They were ultimately defeated long ago, and have not resurfaced. They are not the 'Mark of Cain' people. That's another tribe, which you might were later in name only adopted as Canaanites.

The Mark of Cain was not homosexuality, but a physical mark on their bodies. Perhaps they had freckles or some other distinguishing skin markings.

If the mark was homosexuality, it didn't work, because one of Noah's own sons lusted after his family. It seems incest was what they were against.

In the new testament, Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, even though his disciples did.

I am merely using the Bible as a start off point, and if you do not believe in it, it is where the stuff like Nephilim is mentioned, and in this case you have to look at the source to see where they got the idea. I am not advocating the legitimacy of the Bible for everyone. I am merely pointing out that is one place where these guys appear.

The fringe people are wrong on that connection is all.

Actually Nineveh was spared, unlike Sodom and Gommorah. The city in name still exists in modern Iraq.

Makes you wonder if some of these ancient sites and peoples were just misinterpreted over eons to be either 'gold like' or something else, when they were merely smarter, or better at war, and had then gone away.

All of this genetic stuff is just an excuse for prejudiced fringe people to justify their bias, not an actual conspiracy,

We have seen how poorly actual conspiracy in a government as disjointed as ours it, and it usually ends with some big exposure on the internet or in the media.

To think someone out there believes in a shadow force that controls us like puppets is to be paranoid for the sake of it. These watchers are no more on point than Lovecraft's 'others'.

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Time Machine

10/13/2016 06:53:27 am

>>>The Mark of Cain was not homosexuality

Here's that queer version of The Bible

It's alright for Jesus to engage in sodomy but not to penetrate a woman

"In the new testament, Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, even though his disciples did."

He didn't have to mention it. He addressed almost only Jews, who already counted it as abomination worthy of death according to the Torah. His disciples had to mention it because they addressed gentiles.

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Kal

10/12/2016 02:25:11 pm

Godlike is what I meant, not gold like.

I also detect a little scientology in the logic of these fringe people. That religion literally was made to sell fantasy books.

re: The connection between conspiracy theories and rightward politics: It's significant that both Mike Bara and Robert Morningstar have been deluging the soc-med for at least three months with anti-Clinton propaganda. Some of it as vile as that Alex Jones quote.

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Phillip

10/12/2016 03:43:20 pm

I am flogging a dead horse by saying this, but, if all of this nonsense starts the arrival of the 2nd coming, rejoice!
The angry talk show christians shouldnt give a shit about gays and Clinton if it means their lord and savior are returning to whisk them to heaven.
If your prophecy is coming true, why are you fighting it?

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Kathleen

10/12/2016 08:15:10 pm

I think there is a conflict between wanting to be there to say "I told you so" and not wanting to suffer the pains and tortures of the actual apocalypse.

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Time Machine

10/13/2016 06:57:49 am

It's alright for Jesus Christ to be gay !!
But not to penetrate any woman - that is still taboo !!

According to gay Roman Catholics, the Bible is full of queers
There is a queer version of The Bible.

Time Machine

10/13/2016 07:02:58 am

I presume it would be homophobic to reject a homosexual Jesus Christ.

Titus pullo

10/12/2016 09:07:54 pm

I dare say biblical lunatics inhabit both major parties. William Jennings Brian comes to mind although he was a great Secretary of State and a pacifist against us entry into WwI. Evangelicals used to inhabit the Democratic Party but since the 60s slowly are part of the gop. That said many libertarians are against large organizations like the Eu and central banks and a defense of the nation state as the best way to protect our natural rights.

As for homosexuality I wonder if the reason it was viewed as unholy goes back to simple survival with the high percentage of child mortality perhaps it was vowed as a threat to the continued existence of the village? Most human views and institutions like marriage are developed by trial and error and if their benefit out ways their cost they become part of the cultural norms often wrapped in religious overtones. Marriage creates more stable societies then men having babies with multiple women and not helping to provide.

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David Bradbury

10/13/2016 03:49:01 am

Possibly so, but for anything more ambitious than mere survival in small tribal units, it's really handy to have a substantial percentage of men who are happy to work alongside the alpha males without trying to compete for the available women.

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al etheredge

10/13/2016 05:17:42 am

High infant mortality might also explain the punishment of death given to Onan for "spilling his seed upon the ground."

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V

10/13/2016 11:42:02 am

Spartan society was fairly stable, and their children were literally all raised by the state and their men screwed each other constantly. Similarly, the Greeks had rampant homosexuality and yet a fairly advanced society.

The reason why homosexuality was viewed as a threat, I think, had more to do with the fact that the early Hebrews did not play well with the other children. Replacement has to at least equal attrition. Making your only options for sex be opposing genders inside a marriage does boost your birth rates, generally speaking. But I don't think it was a UNIVERSAL human experience.

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Time Machine

10/13/2016 07:00:29 am

This blog accepts a queer Jesus Christ
But not a heterosexual Jesus Christ

21st century Homo Sapiens worship a homosexual God.
The original disciples were all queers banging away

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Kathleen

10/13/2016 07:09:03 am

Good grief! TM, you're way off topic. Again.

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Uncle Ron

10/13/2016 11:43:09 am

TM is the very essence of a troll. He doesn't care about the topic; he just wants to rile people up. He feels that he is a pathetic, impotent loser who has no control over his life. This is his way of trying to exert "control" over others by goading them into reacting to his absurd comments .Reacting to him only encourages him.

Kathleen

10/13/2016 03:08:42 pm

I know, Uncle Ron. Normally I ignore him but I say something to bullies who move from provocative and cross my line to offensive and hateful. There is enough vitriol flying about the media that he can find like minded folk. I come here to listen, learn and laugh, not scrape manure from the soles of my shoes.

all this effort to make Jesus out to be queer and/or to relate the sin of Sodom to something other than homosexuality is just gay propaganda that is out of context twisting of Scripture. The alleged gay marriage ceremony of early centuries is a BLOOD BROTHERHOOD CREATION CEREMONY nothing to do with sexuality.

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Ph

10/13/2016 10:50:05 am

I am amazed how far it needs to go before the american people realise they've traded their democracy for an oligarchy pretending to be a democracy.

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V

10/13/2016 11:45:34 am

What are you talking about? We never had a democracy in the first place. This has always been a REPUBLIC. And republics do tend to breed a sort of...unofficial oligarchy. But it's not an absolute. If it were, I wouldn't have six pounds of mail begging for my vote this fall. There would be no need to court my vote.

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David Bradbury

10/13/2016 04:53:06 pm

I'm guessing you live in a swing state ...

V

10/13/2016 06:10:18 pm

Blue, at least until this year, actually. But there's a hefty Independent population here, and I'm one of them.

Frank Johnson

10/13/2016 09:33:03 pm

Wow, trump has some scary associations there. Thanks for sharing.

Even believing the flood, I find no evidence in scripture that gay marriage caused the flood. It really states very little specifics.

Anyway, keep up the good work, and wax political if u want

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Jeff Williams

10/16/2016 11:03:23 pm

Jason-- Very interesting info about some of Trump's fringe supporters. But then I suppose you could find some very irrational and weird people among Hillary's supporters, especially the low-information types.

A clarification regarding your statement "Jude 6-7 . . . equates the Fallen Angels with the fornicators of Sodom"-- No, the passage is saying there are parallels between the Fallen Angels and the Sodomites, not that they are one and the same. The passage:

"6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

The passage is saying that the Fallen Angels are in chains awaiting final judgment because they "left their own habitation," i.e. mated with human women (heterosexually); and that likewise, the Sodomites, who also engaged in fornication (Gr. porneia, any kind of banned sexuality, straight or gay) and went after "strange flesh," are an example of God's wrath on porneia. The Fallen Angels went after "strange "or forbidden flesh by having relations with human women; whereas the Sodomites went after "strange " or forbidden flesh by having relations with other male Sodomites. There is no hint in the original Greek that the two groups were equated; only that the writer Jude says that both groups committed the same basic rebellion, that of putting it where it does not belong, though in different ways.

Keep up the good work exposing whackos,snake oil salesmen, liars, and the many idiocies of the NonHistory Channel.

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Neil

10/18/2016 07:44:03 pm

The Bible has been rewritten by Renaissance artists. The Old Testament was entirely copied from Judaism. Jews after centuries of captivity in Egypt and Babylonia decided to "be" at any price. They rewrote from the era of the King Saul all ancient history that was been forgotten or abandoned or destroyed by wars, conspirators and secret religious societies. The New Testament was an entirely written work by the apostle Paul. A brilliant mind. A connoisseur of Judaism and of all ancient religions. After the advent of Judaism and the Apostle Paul, the truth might be terrible - We are eternally condemned to untruth. The historical manipulation made by religions like Judaism, Christianity that was an invention of Judaism, Buddhism and Islam can be seen, in fact, as the true anti-Christ. The real inversion of reality and truth.

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I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.